Israel’s President Peres Joins Facebook Generation

Posted by Tip Staff-62sc on March 02, 2012

Palo Alto, Calif, March 2 – Israel’s President Shimon Peres may be 88 year-old but he’s about to join the “Facebook Generation.”

During a tour of Silicon Valley and southern California next week, President Peres will meet with Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg on March 3 and launch a Facebook page. The president sees social media as offering a unique opportunity to promote dialogue and understanding between people to advance the cause of peace, which he has devoted his whole life to doing.

The President will tour the research and development centers of Facebook to strengthen the company's relations with Israel and conduct a special interview in the Facebook studios during which he will answer questions from surfers around the world.

“Today, using the Internet, we can make peace among people, not just among governments. You can talk to each other freely,” President Peres said in a recent interview. He wants to invite people all around the world to become his Facebook friend – and a friend of peace.

The President’s Residence is also launching the “Peres 360″ project in which the President will be “available” online 24/7 on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and on President Peres’ website. All of these networks will be synchronized, thus allowing maximum access in real time regarding the President’s activities. Links to all these networks of the President on the Web can be found on the official website.

Also during the trip, President Peres will visit the development centers of IBM and be briefed on recent discoveries in the field of the interface between the computer and the human brain as well as innovations in artificial intelligence and atomic research.

Israel is known as the “start-up nation” for its many innovations in high-tech and computer science and the entrepreneurship of its citizens. Israel, whose population stands at around 7.8 million has about 60 companies traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the most of any country outside the U.S. after China. The nation is also home to more startup companies per capita than the United States.

After his visit to Facebook, President Peres will be received as the guest of honor at a lunch with the heads of the largest venture capital companies in the world, among them Accel, Sequoia, Greylock and USVP. During the event, the President will review Israel's relative economic advantage as a reliable partner for investment and for research and development.

On March 7, President Peres will deliver the opening speech at the Launch event, the annual conference gathering leading Hi-Tech industrialists, investors and Hi-Tech correspondents.

On March 8, President Peres will visit Google as the guest of Sergey Brin, co-founder of the company. The following day, he will visit DreamWorks Animation Studios as a personal guest of founders Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.